A few more thoughts on Adi Sankara's maatru-panchakam

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maatru-panchakam

 

In continuation of my earlier posting on this theme, I briefly annotate each of

the 5 stanzas of Adi Sankara’s “maatru-panchakamâ€. I hope readers will

derive the same delight as I have from reading this beautiful hymn in praise of

not only Sankara’s mother but of Motherhood itself.

(1)

“aasthAm tAvadiyam prasUti samayE durvArshUla’vyayAda

nairUchyE tanushOshaNam malamayee sharayyA cha sAmvatsaree I

ekasyApi na garbha-bhAra bharaNa-klEsha-sasya yasyamakshamah:

dAtUm nishkrutimmunanntOpi tanayah: tasyai janannyai namah: II

 

In the throes of painful labor, O mother, You suffered much

To beget me who was then but mere burden of

Ugly, noxious foetal flesh

To be borne long and patiently--

And so you did with loving expectation;

For that one act of love ---

One act and the gift of suffering, O mother,

Nothing that I offer thee

Shall ever suffice as fitting repayment

Except eternal worship at thy feet!

 

My brief comments:

The expression “durvArshUla’vyayAda†is very significant. It is

Sankara’s phrase for the “ugly, noxious†embryo that takes seed inside a

mother’s womb and begins to grow for 9 long months before the moment of birth

arrives when it gets to see daylight for the first time ever in life. There are

2 profound ideas this phrase evokes in the mind of the reader:

 

(1)Firstly, during the course of the 9-month long pregnancy, a mother undergoes

all kinds of pain, discomfort and bodily trials about which the foetus knows

nothing at all --- not during incubation, not after birth, and not after growth

into adulthood. None of us in the world can ever imagine or realize fully what a

terrible physical burden we must have been to our mothers while she carried us.

Our existence in our mother’s womb was unquestionably parasitical.

 

Now, the natural biological response of any host-body to a parasite is to try

rejecting and expelling it. But our beloved mothers, all through the 9-month

long period of pregnancy, gave the parasite nothing but “TLC†--- tender

loving care in gratuitous and spontaneous measure.

 

One who has received an act of extraordinary favor, beneficence or kindness in

life from another must never fail to show due gratitude. It is easy to feel and

show proper gratitude for known or clearly recollected acts of kindness. But how

is one to show due gratitude for the hundred little acts of loving kindness our

mothers showered upon us during the difficult days of pregnancy --- such acts

always remaining unknown to us and ever beyond possible recollection?

 

(2) The second central idea in the stanza is this:

 

The mother’s love for her unborn foetus is a unique one indeed.

 

The feeling of love does not arise in the human breast unaided or in an utterly

spontaneous manner, out of the void or a vacuum as it were. Love is inspired by

sterling qualities --- those qualities of body, mind and heart that the lover

perceives the object of love to be possessing. Romeo loved Juliet for her

beauty, for instance; King Midas craved gold for its value; the average Indian

cricketing fan loves Sachin Tendulkar for his genius. To love somebody or

something is thus always love felt for certain palpably attractive, endearing

qualities or attributes (“guNa-visEshaâ€): physical, mental, moral or

intellectual. If you wish to arouse love in someone, you must necessarily

possess some quality or attribute, bodily or mental, that the other will find

attractive or “lovableâ€.

 

Now, a human embryo taking shape inside the mother’s womb is nothing but an

amorphous and unattractive piece of growing tissue. It has no character. It has

no identity or intelligence. It has no great qualities of beauty, intelligence

or virtue, nothing certainly that anyone would want to describe as endearing or

attractive. The raw and clear truth is the human foetus is not exactly

“lovableâ€; in a purely physical or mundane sense, it is quite grotesque and

it can only arouse only feelings of queasy revulsion in everyone.

 

Everyone except the mother.

 

The pregnant mother alone is overwhelmed with extraordinary feelings of love

overflowing towards what Sankara describes as “durvArshUla’vyayAda†---

an amorphous piece of living tissue possessing no apparent or palpable human

quality even remotely “lovableâ€, “attractive†or “endearingâ€. But

our mothers gave us all such extrordinary love in spite of our pathetic foetal

state when we were all un-defined, attribute-less and under-embodied. At the

very beginning of our earthly existence we were all indeed nothing but mere

genetic speck, biological cipher and grotesque morphological monstrosity. The

rest of the world would have regarded us certainly as nothing but that. Our

mothers however who saw us differently and treated us differently. It is the

mother who looked upon us as part of her very own flesh, blood and soul.. In our

mothers’ eyes what defined and characterized us in our foetal condition and

predicament was not what or how we

were in that particular state but what we were going to be and how we would

evolve in and through life.

 

It is for this particular reason therefore --- the reason that our pregnant

mothers gave us nothing but kindness, nurturing and soulful love when we were

least “lovableâ€, least “attractive†or “endearing†in the eyes of

the rest of the world--- it is for this particular reason that every one of us

is born into the world so deeply and profoundly indebted to our mothers.

 

Best Regards,

Sudarshan MK

 

 

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